Bato and Robin: Two types of absence

“Why is everybody so hot against Sen. Bato dela Rosa? He continues to work. He has good staff. His office is still functioning.”

This was the statement issued by Sen. Robin Padilla, brimming, as always, with insight and wisdom, in defense of Bato, after the latter was widely criticized for deciding to go into hiding for several months now following rumors of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him.

Bato’s decision to live the life of a fugitive, despite not being hunted by any authority, domestic or international, is not only profoundly hilarious in its irony; it also exposed his extreme cowardice. The former top cop, who built his public image on tough-guy bravado much like his patron, ICC prisoner Rodrigo Duterte, scurried into hiding like a rat burrowing into a hole based on nothing more than a rumor. But then again, what do we really expect from a guy who once ran away from a firecracker, leaving behind his men?

By hiding, Bato abandoned his duties as a senator and betrayed the trust placed in him by the voters, prioritizing his self-preservation over public service. That it is Robin who has taken it upon himself to defend Bato’s hiding says a lot about the deafening lack of support for his vanishing act within the Senate. The former action star insists that Bato is not on vacation, but is instead engaged in a noble struggle to protect his human rights against a foreign power. Cute.

But what are Bato’s rights that need protecting? Bato is not being hunted. He is not under arrest. He is not charged. He is not even, strictly speaking, an outlaw. What is clear is that he is reneging on his job, while shamelessly continuing to collect his salary as a senator.

Can ordinary workers do the same, skip work for months, lift not a single finger and still get paid? Is Bato better and more special than hardworking Filipinos who brave hellish traffic, show up every day, work overtime and labor even through holidays just to make ends meet? What an insult to the working people.

And what again, Robin, Bato continues to work despite his absence from the Senate? Really? What work? In the deliberation of the 2026 budget alone, he failed to present and defend the budgets of the government agencies assigned to him by the Senate finance committee, such as the Department of National Defense and its attached agencies, the Revised AFP Modernization Program, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and the National Security Council, among others.

Still, Robin insists that a senator’s job is not limited to attending hearings or participating in plenary deliberations. Uhm, hello! Earth to Robin. Those are precisely some of the core responsibilities of a lawmaker. Unless, of course, gluta drip sessions inside a Senate office now qualify as legislative work.

Which brings us to Robin’s assertion that Bato can afford to be physically absent because he has “good staff.” But who, exactly, are they?

It appears that Bato’s Senate office is a family enterprise. This was confirmed by the Senate’s website, which shows that his daughter serves as his chief of staff, his niece as his media relations officer and another Dela Rosa as his appointments secretary. This does not yet account for other family members and relatives who are allegedly employed in his office. Wow! What is this, a daily family reunion in aid of legislation? One gets the sense that if a plantilla position were available for the family dog, it would have been filled already.

But the more damning question remains – what is the quality of their work that Robin insists is exemplary? The public needs only to watch Bato’s performance, or lack thereof, in Senate hearings and plenary sessions, and decide for themselves whether this is truly how they want their taxes spent.

Bato and Robin make for a good combination. They represent two types of absence in the Senate. The first is Bato’s physical absence, driven by fear of accountability and meeting the same fate as Duterte. This is from the same man who once declared that he was unafraid of the ICC and, channeling Clint Eastwood, said, “Make my day!” It is a carbon copy of Digong’s own defiant posturing. But when he was served the ICC warrant, Duterte clung to his chair and desperately tried to evade justice.

The second type is the absence of logic and common sense, personified by Robin. In defending Bato, Robin argued that Bato is a “worker.” But what kind of worker does not work? He also claimed that Bato is “a senator of the Filipino people, not of the Senate building.” What does that even mean? But let’s suspend reality for a moment and indulge Robin’s logic. By his standards, he himself is also a “senator of the Senate building” because he attends sessions. And applying the same standard, the more absent a senator is, the more effective he becomes. What a great time for logic!

I can already hear Robin smart-shaming us. Mr. Senator, we are not asking you to be a genius. Just make some damn sense.

Bato’s absence of accountability and Robin’s absence of common sense normalize absenteeism, evasion of accountability and incompetence. They have made the Senate a place where hiding from justice passes for “principle” and sheer nonsense is packaged as a valid political standpoint. We, the taxpayers, who pay for their salaries, bear the consequences of this farce.

We deserve better. We do not benefit from lawmakers who are allergic to common sense and who cowardly hide at the first whiff of justice. We deserve senators who show up, physically, intellectually and morally.